The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/Industrial Activity of Czechoslovaks in Siberia

Industrial Activity of Czechoslovaks in Siberia

Now that the Czechoslovak army in Siberia is beginning, after many heart-breaking delays, to embark at Vladivostok on the long ocean journey home, it seems timely to say something about one phase of its activities in Russia which has hitherto remained unmentioned in America, namely, the work of its Technical Corps.

When the break with the Bolsheviki came in May, 1918, the position of the small Czechoslovak army seemed almost desperate. It was surrounded by bolshevik power on all sides, it was completely cut off from the world and from the help of its friends, and its only reliance was placed in the Siberian railroad, which it proceeded to get into its control. In that the Czechs were successful, but when they got possession of the roadbed and stations they were faced with the problem of carrying on the necessary traffic without locomotives and cars, across bridges which the Bolsheviks damaged, with railroad shops employing unskilled Russian labor. Without good communication by railroad, the army was in danger of being destroyed piecemeal, and the same danger threatened, unless Siberian industry was re-organized so as to produce munitions and the various supplies without which an army cannot exist. When Siberia was liberated and a front created in European Russia, it was necessary to create a supply basis in Siberia, and for this purpose the Technical Corps of the Czechoslovak army was organized.

A luncheon at the Officers Training School at Sludanka.
At head of table Gen. Syrovy, Gen. Janin, Pohdan Pavlu, the Czechoslovak plenipotentiary, and Rudolf Medek, repres. of war ministry.

The principal tasks of the Corps were to maintain railroad communications and to get the factories in liberated territory going at full speed. The heads of the Technical Corps, Engineers Znameníček, Holna and Roubínek, called at once a conference of the principal Ural manufacturers in Cheliabinsk. The conference resulted in the formation of the Ural Industrial Committee, consisting of four Russian representatives of the Ural industry and Engineer Holna as the Czechoslovak delegate, representing the military power of the district. The committee investigated the financial condition of the various plants and then assigned to the important factories Czechoslovak engineers and foremen, who as officers of the Technical Corps were authorized by the newly established Siberian government to control the running of the factory to any extent they found advisable. That this Czechoslovak interference in Russian industry was necessary and proper, and that the experts made good, is made clear from the fact that both owners and workingmen soon were flocking to the Technical Corps with requests for the assignment of experts.
Czechoslovak Railway Post Office in Siberia. At the end of January, 1919, there were 95 factories under the direction of the Corps.

The work of Czechoslovak engineers and foremen had surprising results. Labor force became more efficient and increase in production averaged in January 35% and 39% in mines. Coal mines in Cheliabinsk increased annual production by 12 million pounds. Anthracite mines of Yagorshinsk, which the Bolsheviks had put completely out of working, were restored under Czechoslovak control in six weeks, and production was increased 200% against former rate.

All railroad shops were at once taken over and their capacity used to the full so as to remedy the terrible lack of rolling stock; efficiency of the Russian workers was raised by 35%.

Another creditable result was a saving in the consumption of raw material. Thus fully 50% of coal was saved and 60% of lubricants in the Verchiset plant under the direction of Engineer Splytek; this saving meant more than merely cutting down expenses, because of the great dearth of all raw material. Modern methods were introduced in foundries and rolling mills with considerable success.

Class struggle in Russia is far more severe than in the West, and since the Czechoslovaks had to keep the industries going and enjoyed the confidence of all classes, it was natural that they should be called in constantly as mediators. A special section was organized in the Technical Corps to settle industrial disputes. It received 116 oral and 204 written requests for its good offices, and in every case they managed to restore peace and keep the plant going. Both managers and labor unions sought the mediation of the Czechoslovaks or their advice.

The position of the Czechoslovak experts was not easy. They were frequently stationed at a great distance from the nearest garrison of their countrymen, alone among thousands of Russian workers, among whom Bolshevik agitators were always busy. But with the prestige of the Czechoslovak army at their back they managed to keep peace and order each in his special field, although two engineer officers and three foremen lost their lives in local up risings.

They exerted a great influence over the workingmen and kept them efficient far more successfully than Russian engineers, who were unable to gain the confidence
Gen. Rudolf Gajda (on the right) with the late Gen. Štefanik. of the Russian workers; somehow or other the Czechoslovaks were trusted.

After the existing plants were running comparatively smoothly, the decision was taken to establish new plants or remodel old ones for the manufacture of various products needed by the army. Thus the Šaitan factory, half destroyed by the Bolsheviks, was completely restored by Czechoslovak engineers in three months, and began to turn out boiler tubing for locomotives, an industry that was new to the Urals and quite indispensable at that very time.

The dynamite plant, at Kystym had suspended operations for lack of experts and skilled workers, lack of raw material arid antiquated equipment. Czechoslovaks supplied new machinery, materials and expert managers. Just before the army left the Urals the daily output of dynamite was 110 pouds, as against 40 pouds a year previously, when the number of workers was twice as large as under Czechoslovak management. A factory in Ekaterinburg was transformed into a gasoline refinery and furnished all the gasoline needed by the army. Another idle plant was made to produce chemicals used for the manufacture of glass, and later glass itself. The Technical Corps organized a pyrotechnical bureau for both Czechoslovak and Russian armies; its products are quite up to the mark.

Russia in 1918 was almost completely lacking all medicines and drugs. As this matter concerned closely the lives of wounded and sick soldiers, a laboratory was established that produced ether, collodium, AgNO3, CuSO4, FeSO4, Sorelli’s paste, CHC13, chloroform, etc. This chemical laboratory makes also hectographs and hectograph inks, espitelen for the lighting of railroad cars, spiritobenzol for auto parts, etc.

A visit to the first storming battalion, Winter of 1919.

For the supply of many smaller articles of equipment for the army and repair of guns special Czechoslovak shops were constructed. In one month an immense building, formerly used as a barracks, was transformed into a machine shop which turns out many things for the use of the Czechoslovak and Siberian armies—telephones, accumulators, tools for engineer troops, field kitchens, boilers, scales, safes, spurs, buckles, brasswork, locks, engraved articles like regimental numbers and insignia, office desks, file cases. All machinery equipment in field bakeries, hospitals, convalescent houses and sanitary trains is manufactured in Czechoslovak shops.

The Technical Corps had also to under take the evacuation of endangered cities. The Russian Samara government felt quite helpless and beseeched the Czechoslovaks to take charge of this work, as was done also by the Ural and Siberian governments in the fall of 1918. Thus it was due to the tireless work of Czechoslovak engineers, who organized the available Russian common labor, that at the evacuation of the city of Samara millions of bombs and cartridges were saved. In Ufa they saved 10 tanks of oil, raw and refined. In general Czechoslovak technical experts saved in the vast territory west of the Urals, which had to be abandoned, all munitions, clothing and other necessaries, so that the Bolsheviks found there practically nothing that they could use for their own armies. Where the Russians worked alone, they did not make a very good showing; thus they had a whole month to evacuate Perm, but they did not save a single trainload of petroleum, although there was stored in Perm 325,000 pouds of it and all of northern Siberia lacked coal oil for their lamps.

Czechoslovaks receive Allied decorations, Irkutsk, May 1919.

By taking stock of raw material, ready manufactures and technical means of production and by good management the Czechoslovaks succeeded in making everything last for six months before new supplies were imported. Profiteering was kept down, because the Technical Corps assumed control over prices of materials and manufactures needed by the army.

By their energy and ability the Czechoslovaks saved incidentally much Allied property, for citizens of Allied states had a great deal of capital invested in factories over which Czechoslovak engineers exercised control; this capital would have been lost, together with the factories, without Czechoslovak interference. And if the plants had been permitted to go to ruin there would be practically no industrial production in Siberia today, for conditions still are not such as to encourage enterprise, and, besides, there persists deep distrust between the owners or managers and employees.

It is a great pity that the recent successes of the Bolsheviks have destroyed much of what the Czechoslovaks saved or created. The plants which they operated were for the most part located in the Urals, where coal and metals and other minerals are found, and where there was centered considerable industrial life. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks got very little when they drove back Kolchak's armies. Czechoslovak enginers who were on the spot, although their own army was guarding the railroad far to the east, saved raw material, ready manufactures and machinery, and when the Bolsheviki are thrown back it will be a comparatively easy matter to get the factories going once more.

The All-Russian government and Russian industrial circles appreciate fully the great work done by the Technical Corps of the Czechoslovak army, and in the records of the Corps there are many documents testifying to Czechoslovak efficiency in Siberia.